


Of Mercenaries and Lost Souls

by DuaeCat



Series: Lost Souls [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3559205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuaeCat/pseuds/DuaeCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sabine Wren, a Mandaloran Mercenary, never set out to build a family of sorts. They just sort of showed up.</p><p>A fic that started out as "What if Ezra was the padawan who survived Order 66 and ran, and Kanan the little Loth-rat he finds later?" and kind of grew from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghost

Dev muttered quietly to himself as he reached a little deeper into the plumbing system. The main filters were easy to grab out and clean, but the inner filters and mechanism was much harder to reach. It made sense, theoretically the inner filters should only need to be changed or cleaned every ten years. Theoretically. If the ship was carrying the one fairly hairless humanoid it was designed for. Instead with three people aboard and one of them decidedly fuzzy the damn thing seemed to jam once a week. Finally his fingers found the release he was looking for and pressed it. And then he pressed it again, finally jamming it hard in order to get the catch to finally give in and let him yank the pump system and filters free. He hauled them out, his mild moment of triumph spoiled by the annoyed growl from the doorway.  
  
“You’re not done yet?” The Lasat leaned on the door frame, glaring down at him.  
  
“No, I’m not done yet. I’ve barely gotten started. And griping about it isn’t going to make it go any faster.” Dev grabbed the tools he needed to start pulling the pump apart to get to the clumps of fur jamming it up, silently reminding himself yet again that it wasn’t Zeb’s fault the plumbing wasn’t designed for him. It also wouldn’t hurt him to show some gratitude for the work.  
  
“Well hurry it up I need to shower. Again. Sabine had me shake down her latest informant and he always reeks like a cheap brothel.”  
  
“Believe me, the last thing I want to do is stand between you and your personal hygiene, but if the pump goes none of us are going to be able to shower.” Dev carefully scrubbed over the filters, the problem with the fur was it was incredibly short and fine, the diameter of each strand far smaller than a human hair and it slipped right past the main filters and into the inner workings. It also meant he couldn’t just try to spray them off or it would end up right back in the pump again. The water he used for cleaning it had to be dumped out and fresh bought.  
  
“Are you implying something about my hygiene?” Zeb loomed a little closer, cracking a knuckle.  
  
“That I can smell fear and cheap perfume from here, it has to be worse up close. I'm sorry.” Dev tried to defuse the situation. They were both on edge and starting a fight wouldn’t help anything.  
  
“You’re not finished yet? What’s taking so long?” A new voice spoke up, Sabine pushing past Zeb and stepping into the ‘fresher.  
  
Dev bit back a groan. “I’m not sure why, obviously one of you two could do this so much faster and better. Just give me half an hour of peace and I’ll have the shower ready for you both, promise.  
  
“Don’t need the shower right now, but this is the only working toilet on ship.” Sabine stepped around him in the tight space, starting to unfasten some of the armor releases. Dev yelped and covered his eyes.  
  
“What? No… come on. You could warn me. I’ll give you a minute.” Dev tried to scoot backwards without opening his eyes.  
  
Sabine snorted and Zeb laughed.  
  
“What’s the matter, never seen a female human before?” Zeb’s gruff voice sounded far too amused at his discomfort.  
  
“I’ve seen plenty of women, that doesn’t mean I can’t still believe in privacy. And basic decency. And in closing the ‘fresher door! You honestly don’t care?”  
  
“Military, you stop being squeamish about that kind of thing quick or you start having problems.” Zeb volunteered.  
  
“Same idea.” Sabine sounded amused too.  
  
“You’re both freaks.”  
  
“Two of us don’t have a problem and one does, who’s the freak again?” Sabine finished up, getting everything fastened again. “You can look again, it’s safe. And get that pump fixed.”    
  
Dev uncovered his eyes to glare. “I will if I stop getting interrupted every few seconds.”  
  
“I thought you liked a challenge.” She smirked at him, stepping around him again to leave.  
  
There was wonderful silence for nearly a full minute as he got the last of the fur out of the pump and started on the next filer.  
  
“So… how much longer did you say?”  
  
Dev managed a growl that would have done the Lasat proud.  


* * *

  
  
Dev dragged the hologram of the ship’s interior, sectioning off part of the cargo hold. “What about here?”  
  
“No good, even with the minimum space required we’d lose the space of four stacks of crates. I still say off the cabin…” Zeb reached out to move the section to the cabin space.  
  
“No way, that cuts the floorspace down. You already steal the bed more than you alternate like you’re supposed to, with that plan the only space for me to stretch out is directly in front of the bunks and I’m not getting stepped on by everyone who needs to move around in the middle of the night. What about here?”  
  
“That’s the holding cell, though I suppose you could always sleep there and then we wouldn’t worry about the floorspace.”  
  
“Not a chance. If that sounds so nice, why don’t you volunteer?”  
  
Sabine sat back and watched them bicker, only half listening as she turned other ideas over in her head. The one thing she was grateful for was neither had suggested tossing the other out, at least not seriously. It wasn’t a reasonable option anyway.  Dev was fairly average looking for a human, indigo hair, a thick scruff of blue-black facial hair he sometimes neatly trimmed into a goatee and sometimes left alone to grow for a while. He was currently somewhere between neatly trimmed and unwashed drifter. Even scruffy he tended to look more adorable than threatening, with big blue eyes and a soft face. He was charming too, the sort of guy who walked into a bar a stranger and left everyone’s best friend. At least as far as they knew. He was also the only person she’d met who could out shoot her and he had more than a few hidden talents.  
  
Zeb was his opposite in a lot of ways, towering over both of them when he stretched to his full height, and solid muscle with broad shoulders that looked like he might have trouble fitting through doors. Most humanoids found his looks to be intimidating, and he was every bit as strong as he looked and even faster and more agile than most would predict. He was perfect when she needed someone to loom and look intimating and the fact he answered to her without question tended to make people reevaluate exactly how dangerous she might be. Telling either one of them they had to leave wasn’t an option, which left only one solution.  
  
She leaned forward, clearing her throat, and instantly both of them went quiet, looking her way.  
  
“What you’re saying is, unless we break the laws of physics, there’s just not enough room on the ship. Only one solution then, we’re going to need a bigger one.”  
  
Both of them looked surprised at that. Dev was the first to speak, a little hesitantly.  
  
“Can we afford it though?”  
  
“Can we afford not to? Ediee’s a good ship, but she was only built for one person, two was pushing it, and three’s just not working. We’re all at eachother’s throats and it’s not going to get any easier. Something like a light freighter would give us some room.”  
  
“What about the extra cost to fly a bigger bird?” Zeb tapped the control to bring up the expense sheets they had.  
  
“Bigger ship means bigger cargo, we can make up for the added cost that way, plus we can stockpile on supplies when they’re available and cheap. As is that’s one of our biggest wastes, we can’t keep more than a couple weeks worth of food and fuel on board and we’re at the mercy of whatever someone wants to charge us.” Sabine watched as they both thought it over.  
  
“So we finish up here and then start looking for a bigger ship?”  
  
“That’s the plan.” Sabine smiled. “I think I know a guy.”  
  
“You always know a guy.” Zeb grumbled, but he looked relieved at having a solution now.  
  
“That’s why I’m the captain.”  
  
“And we’re the crew” Dev finished.  
  
“I was thinking more my minions, but crew works.” Sabine laughed at their expressions.  


* * *

  
  
Sabine reached out to shake the Wookie’s forearm, carefully intoning the traditional words to start trade negotiations. Humans might lack the vocal chambers needed to correctly manage the language but training and practice could allow for a good approximation. It just also always managed to feel like she’d been swallowing glass shards, but appearances counted for a lot in this sort of thing. Etiquette satisfied, she switched back to Basic.  
  
“You said you had some ships you’d consider parting with?”  
  
Whrrlporin brought up the holo, a screen listing off the specs of the ship as it rotated.  
  
“No good, I said bigger. That one’s got more interior space but that’s because it sacrifices usefulness for it.”  
  
 He grumbled, pointed out that if she didn’t need quite so many weapons it would be easier.  
  
“Not happening and you know it.”  
  
He went through a few more until he finally hesitated, hand over the projector button, explaining there was one more light freighter he had, but there were a few problems. Someone else had already put in a claim, but they didn’t have the credits yet. They were working with him, but…  
  
“But credits in hand are more useful than credits sometime in the future. Let me see it.”  
  
He brought up the holo and she studied it for a long while, turning it and going over the schematics, the various reports.  
  
“It looks promising, really promising. Worth seeing in person at least. Lead the way  


* * *

  
  
Sabine was in love. That wasn’t all that unusual actually, she had a lot of ongoing relationships and old flings and had been known to get far too sentimental over crates of bomb parts. This was different though, and she ran a hand over a console almost reverently.  
  
Whrrlporin made a small sound and she turned to look at him.  
  
“Yes, I want her, but don’t think you’ll get to cheat me just because you know I’m eager to buy.”  
  
He held up his hands, insisting that he had no idea what she was talking about, starting back out into the hanger so they could finish negotiations, only to be stopped by a slight figure at the end of the ramp, staring up with a challenging look.  
  
“You must be Hera. Here to try and scare off any potential buyers?” Sabine took the opportunity to study the young teenage twi’lek. She wore a baggy flightsuit like it was a type of armor, and maybe for her it was. After a moment she turned to Whrrlporin with a small nod. “I’ll catch up in a bit.”  
  
He gave them both a curious look, and then shrugged, heading back towards his office while Sabine motioned for Hera to follow her back onto the ship.  
  
Sabine sprawled back on one of the seats in the galley, watching as the teen warily took the farthest spot across from her.  
  
“It’s my ship, I’ve got a claim on her.” She may have looked nervous, but there was no sign of it in her voice, and that earned her more than a few points.  
  
“And I’m sure you know no matter how good your claim is, credits in hand nearly always trumps it. I’ll bet there’s a loophole in your contract about that, isn’t there? And that’s why you’re here to talk me out of buying her.” Sabine watched her shrink back a little, and then lean forward again.  
  
“There’s still a lot of work to be done, it’ll fly, but you’ll be lucky to get out of the system before something goes wrong.”  
  
“I can see that. The nav computer’s ancient and needs replacing if you don’t want to come out in the middle of a star. And then…” Sabine listed off all the obvious faults she’d found, watching Hera’s eyes grow bigger as she kept talking. “… did I miss anything?”  
  
Hera was staring at the table top at this point. “The magnetic seals for the shuttle have degraded, but you can’t really tell with the shuttle in place.”  
  
Sabine leaned forward, and then had a moment of confusion as Hera flinched back.  
  
“Easy, I’m not going to hit you over the head and take her.” Sabine stated casually, then watched how Hera looked up, puzzled, and made the connection. Of course she wouldn’t recognize the emblems and symbols painted into her armor, and the speaker for her helmet flattened her voice to a more androgynous tone. Even if Hera looked to barely be starting into sexual maturity the odds were good she’d already discovered how some male sentients reacted towards female twi’lek. With a motion she reached up, tugging her helmet up and off, shaking her short hair away from her face and giving Hera a lazy grin. “I was hoping we might come to an agreement that would benefit us both.”  


* * *

  
  
Sabine led the small parade back to Ediee where Dev and Zeb were supposed to have stayed. They didn’t always stay put, but they generally always had very good reasons for taking off. Or at least entertaining ones. They were where they were supposed to be for once. Dev had a panel open on the outside, dark goggles on and welding torch in hand, Zeb nearby with a toolbox.  Hera had met up with her droid, an older model astromech that seemed to have a running commentary on everything so far. Sabine wasn’t sure if the two of them assumed she couldn’t understand, or didn’t care.  
  
“What are you two breaking now?” Sabine yelled up when she was close enough, grinning behind her visor when Dev made a rude gesture.  
  
“I’m _fixing_ that sensor that jolts loose every time we land and then beeps to tell us half the engine’s missing if we don’t shove it back into place before takeoff.” He gave it another careful touch with the flame, eying his work and then turning the torch off, handing it over to Zeb as they both started back to the ground.  
  
“Who’s your new friends?” Zeb was the first to ask once both feet where on the ground, as Dev followed shortly after, shoving the goggles back.  
  
“This is Hera, and…” Sabine paused a moment.  
  
“Chopper” Hera volunteered quietly, watching the two of them suspiciously.  
  
“They might be joining our little crew and wanted to meet both of you first.”  
  
“No, no no no!” It only took half a moment for the meaning of her words to register, and then both of them were taking a step back, waving their hands in obvious denial.  
  
“But Sabine..”  
“You said…”  
“Bigger ship..”  
“We’re already crammed in like…”  
“Karabast! What were you…”  
  
“Enough!” Sabine spoke up, making them both quiet down. She was glad to see Hera looked more amused than anything at their obvious horror. “I found us a bigger ship, it just so happens that Hera wanted it first. If we buy it outright it’s right at the top of our budget and we don’t have much left over for upgrades so we’ll be limping along until we can afford them. But if we go in with it together…”  
  
“Then we have enough for repairs, upgrades, and supplies.” Hera finished quietly, looking a little less nervous.  
  
“See? Makes sense all around.”  
  
Dev stepped forward at that, holding his hand out. “Dev Morgan.” He grinned, obviously turning on the charm some, but his handshake was nothing more than firm and professional.  
  
“Just call me Zeb.”  He didn’t make any move to shake her hand, but did smile at her, while Chopper made a rude sound. “What did he just say?”  
  
“He said it’s nice to meet you all.” Hera said without missing a beat. Sabine tried not to laugh. Maybe this would work out after all.  
  
“Does this ship of yours have a name?” Dev spoke up, and Sabine realized she’d forgotten to ask. Of course if Hera had been working towards it she’d probably named it, even if only to herself.  
  
“The Ghost.” Hera said, with a little more confidence, looking at all of them like she was making a decision. “I call it the Ghost.”  



	2. Artists

Sabine hauled the buckets of paint to the room, casually overriding the lock and starting inside, pausing when she heard a beep.   
  
“I know, this is Dev’s room, not mine. And I know he said I wasn’t to paint anything on his room, but this is different. You’ll see.” She nodded to Chopper as she unfolded the drop cloths.  
  
“Different how?” Hera spoke up from where she was lurking behind Chopper. She may have had the lanky too tall look many teens got after they hit a growth spurt and the rest of them hadn’t caught up with their height, but she could still move quietly and lurk surprisingly well.   
  
“It’s a surprise, but trust me, it’s one that he’ll like. Want to help?” At the cautious nod she handed over a roller. “We’re starting with the side walls.”  
  
It had taken a few months of traveling together before Sabine even realized Dev had another hidden talent. They’d been in a bar waiting on one of her contacts to show up about a possible job offer and someone had left a few papers behind. They were nothing important, extra copies of farming reports, and after making sure they were garbage Dev had claimed them. She’d watched him as he slowly nursed his drink and filled the blank backs of them with sketches, people she recognized and people she’d never seen, plants and skylines and the cockpit of the Ediee as viewed from the second seat. It was good, better than good, and she made a mental note to say something to him about it later. Then after his drink was gone he methodically shredded each sheet, bit by bit, into confetti, tossing them all into the garbage can before they left.   
  
It was such a stark contrast to her own work. She liked things big and bold, as permanent as she could make it. The more people who saw it the better. There was power in that, communication of a sort that defied description. People would see it and take whatever meaning they wanted from it. Even her personal art was still bold and she never erased. Mistakes were still there, under layers of new paint. The old work never really went away, much like life, it just became less obvious. Next time she was buying new paints she picked up a sketchbook and handful of pencils, leaving them on the bottom bunk.   
  
The sketchbook had sat unused for weeks before it started shrinking, page after page filled and then destroyed, sometimes immediately and sometimes lingering for weeks before they went the same way as the rest. She’d asked him why, once, if he was embarrassed to show her. He’d laughed at that, startled, and passed the latest page over. ‘Once it’s drawn it’s in the past, I don’t need to look back on it to remember I’ve done it, it’s done.’   
  
They talked more about it then, he’d take requests, the Rodian bartender with the birthmark across her face, the  ancient tree that grew outside the city that was so twisted in on itself it looked like a mass of snakes, sometimes even her. A few weeks after Zeb had joined he drew both of them, cards in hand leaning in close, smiling like they were sharing a private joke. She was in her under armor and he was relaxed and smiling for the first time since he came on board. Dev had pretended not to notice when that sketch was carefully removed and made its way into the few things Zeb had brought with him. The rest of them were always destroyed after they'd been seen.   
  
Sabine shook off thoughts of the past when Hera spoke up.   
  
“What now?”    
  
“The top coat needs to go on everything, it’s the most important part. Then once it’s dry we’re done, at least with the work part.” Sabine pulled over a clean roller, cracking the lid on the last can, this one clear.   
  


* * *

  
  
Dev frowned, hesitating at his door, hand on the access panel. Something had changed, he knew it. In the past that sort of worry would have been far more serious, now it was only an annoyance as he steeled himself and opened the door, wondering what ‘improvements’ Sabine might have made.   
  
The faint smell of well aired out paint fumes met his nose and he frowned a little more, looking around. He’d told her his room was off limits, the rest of the ship may be available for her artwork, but he wanted his room to be his. At first glance though it looked… fine. The walls had been painted, but in neutral colors, soft tans and whites. Colors he’d have chosen himself over the grey if he’d thought about it, it was still a little annoying not to have been asked first. Then he finally spotted it, a scribble over on the wall by the bunk, over a closed box. It was easy to recognize both Hera and Sabine in Sabine’s familiar quick scrawl, both holding what were probably paint brushes. Under it was written “Don’t be mad! (It wipes off)” and with an amused look he reached out, dragging a fingertip over the words and wiping away a streak of the color leaving the wall clean under it.   
  
“If you’re going to yell about it, I swear I wasn’t involved.” Zeb’s rough voice came from the doorway, making Dev turn.   
  
“No, I’m not going to yell. If the perpetrators are lurking nearby, let them know I love it. It’s just missing something.” He opened up the box to take out a handful of the markers as he could hear Sabine raise her voice from the other room.  
  
“It’s not missing anything, my work’s perfect!”   
  
“Yeah, so add some more of it.” He pressed a marker into Zeb’s hand, startling him, and then nudged him on inside.   
  
Hera was reluctant, pointing out that their work was so much better than hers, until Zeb pointed out that Chopper had a marker in one arm and was scooting along the wall drawing a line of crude phalluses. Zeb added eyes and fangs to one, earning him a torrent of abuse from the little droid while he grinned and dodged Chopper’s attempts to draw on him instead. By the time they were finished the walls were a riot of color.

* * *

  
  
Dev took it all in after everyone else had left to sleep or find their own solitude, committing every scribble and drawing to memory before he picked up the cloth. It was almost meditation, almost like rituals he’d abandoned years ago, as he wiped everything clean. He wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to explain it, that the only way he’d be afraid of wiping all of it clean is if he feared they’d never get to do this again. By the time he was ready to sleep the walls were empty again, like a promise.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After reading Ezra's Rebel Journal I wanted to do something with him being an artist. He's just very different, artistically from Sabine.

**Author's Note:**

> Right now Dev's 26, Sabine's 24, Zeb's 37, and Hera's 14.


End file.
